1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a combination wine rack and glass retention/dispensing assembly.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the field of consumer appliances, there has in recent years been a trend toward providing various appliances and consumer goods in modularized configurations amenable to mounting on the bottom surfaces of overhead cabinets in kitchen, office, and similar environments.
Such cabinet-mounted appliances and consumer goods include the Black & Decker Spacemaker.TM. Counter Bright.TM. can opener model ECL80, the Rival Cutabove.TM. Under Cabinet Food Prep Center model 6000 food processor, the Black & Decker Spacemaker.TM. portable mixer model SPM50, the Cosmo "Under-The-Cabinet" digital alarm clock, the General Electric Spacemaker.TM., under the cabinet color television with FM/AM radio, and the Mr. Coffee.TM. Under Cabinet Drip Coffee Maker model UPC-300. The factors giving impetus to this trend have included the reduction in size of various such appliances and consumer goods as a result of the use of microcircuitry or other design improvements, and the desire to impart a sleek, ordered look to kitchens, office spaces, and other locations in which overhead cabinets or similar overhead structures accommodating mounting of such apparatus may be employed.
Another trend in recent years has been the proliferating consumption of wine, particularly premium wine, in the United States. As a consequence, it has become common practice to employ as household articles small-sized wine racks accommodating one or more bottles of wine for storage in a generally horizontal position, preferrably with the necks of the bottles slightly downwardly oriented to keep the corks therein in contact with the wine. A large variety of such portable wine racks, constructed of various materials such as wood, metal, rattan, plastic and the like, have been commercialized.
Associated with such consumption of wine is the use of stemware glasses, i.e., glasses of the type having a stem attached at one end to the liquid receptacle and at the other end to a generally planar base. In restaurants, bars, and the like, it has become a common practice to utilize glass racks for such stemware, by which the stemware is retained in an inverted position within slotted tracks formed by spaced-apart convergingly arranged flange elements on which the generally planar base of the invertedly positioned glass is supported. Such glass racks are frequently suspended from ceiling mounts by means of chains, such the Hanging Glass Rack commercially available as item 541486JT from Best Products Company, Inc., Roanoke, Va.
Another type of stemware rack of similar construction is the Stemware Spacesaver racks available as items number D2024A and D2024B from Bruce Bolind, Boulder, Colo., such racks being adapted to mount underneath a portion of a cupboard shelf inside of a cabinet, or under a cabinet itself.
A wine rack adapted to mount under a refrigerator shelf to store a single bottle of wine is shown at page 24 of the Autumn 1986 Catalog of Cooking Tools and Gourmet Gadgets, Volume X1, No. 4, published by Wooden Spoon.RTM., Inc.
A combined wine and glass rack is described on page 5 of The Crate and Barrel Catalog, Fall and Winter 1986, published by The Crate and Barrel, Northbrook, Ill. This wine and glass rack assembly is a free-standing unit whose top wall retains stemware in an inverted position, above a series of vertically spaced-apart wine rack rows extending between the side walls of the unit.
Although a multiplicity of wire racks and stemware storage units have been developed and commercialized to date, there exists a continuing need for improved modularized wine rack and stemware storage devices.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a combination wine rack and glass retention/dispensing assembly of a simple, unitary design, which may be mounted on the bottom surface of an overhead cabinet, or similar generally horizontal mounting surface.
Other objects and advantages will be more fully apparent from the ensuing disclosure and appended claims.